~ politics for the people

Brexit bill: Are you ‘confident’ Theresa May can get the deals she wants? Nor is anyone else

Pro-EU demonstrators outside of the Houses of Parliament on June 11 [Image used by The Guardian to support its article].

Theresa May’s camp in the Conservative Party seems keen to use a particular word at the moment – with undue optimism, it seems.

That word is “confident“.

She used it in her address to the Tory backbench 1922 Committee: “I am confident I can get a deal that allows us to strike our own trade deals while having a border with the EU which is as frictionless as possible.”

Is she really? Michel Barnier vetoed that at the end of last week, so her confidence seems… misplaced, at best?

Tory rebel remainers had warned Tweezer that her planned changes to the EU Withdrawal Bill before its return to the House of Commons this week, to negate amendments made by the House of Lords, would not prevent a revolt.

Downing Street insiders said they were confident they can overcome the 15 defeats by the Lords, covering areas including giving parliament a meaningful final vote as well as seeking to keep the UK in the customs union, even though Labour has said it will support all the amendments but one.

But the Conservative backbenchers told The Guardian they are not yet satisfied with some of the changes to the legislation despite senior government figures saying they were confident of getting them through.

So Mrs May resort to her backstop position (see what I did there?) – emotional blackmail. She said any defeats would undermine her negotiating position with Brussels.

She said: “We must think about the message parliament will send to the European Union this week. I am trying to negotiate the best deal for Britain… But if the Lords amendments are allowed to stand, that negotiating position will be undermined.”

Confident? No. If she was confident, she wouldn’t have to make such a blatant appeal to Tory tribalism and their habit of putting party before country.

She cannot even be confident of making a deal with her own Parliamentary party.

Theresa May is desperate to continue driving us down this road to ruin.

And we know she was lying. She won’t negotiate the best deal for Britain because she has been compromised so many times in the alliances she has been forced to make in order to get even as far as she has, which is nowhere.

There is no reason to believe that the Lords’ amendments will not result in a better deal with the EU – or even a better deal for the Conservatives and their supporters. In this matter, we have no reason to believe that Tweezer is interested in the well-being of anyone other than herself.

She is relying on the tribalism of her backbenchers; she hopes it will blind them to her machinations.

Labour, meanwhile, has only to keep her on the path she has chosen. If her backbenchers see through her arguments, then they will split the party and she will soon lose power. If they allow her to continue, then Brexit will be a disaster for the UK and she will lose power later.

Either way, in political terms, Theresa May is a dead woman walking – no matter how confident she says she is. The EU 27 have seen this already.

Related

Post navigation

3 thoughts on “Brexit bill: Are you ‘confident’ Theresa May can get the deals she wants? Nor is anyone else”

The key phrase there is “as frictionless as possible”. Stopping every piece of freight could be argued to fit that phrase if that’s the best deal she can get. I’m not confident at all. These talks have been a textbook example of mishandling allied to overconfidence.

Barmier can’t veto anything, he is just a very bad inexperienced negotiator chosen by the unelected commission to be an idiot and do his utmost to make a mess of it, we should walk away and discuss trade once the wto regulations kick in.

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.